About This Guide

Overview

Scope

Bibliographic Formats and Standards is a guide to machine-readable cataloging records in WorldCat. It provides tagging conventions, input standards and guidelines for entering information into WorldCat.

Audience

Bibliographic Formats and Standards assumes you are familiar with Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, second edition, 2004 Revision, and other standard cataloging reference material. Some sections also assume you have a general knowledge of data processing and databases.

Superseded documents

This edition supersedes the cataloging information in these technical bulletins:

Examples

The examples provided are illustrative, not prescriptive. Do not take the examples or the form in which they are presented as instructions. Because of the dynamic nature of WorldCat, some examples may not appear online now as shown in the document.

Additional examples

When you find a record that illustrates a cataloging rule or coding practice particularly well, please share it with us. Please send an e-mail message giving the OCLC record number and comments to dawsonc@oclc.org.

Input Standards

OCLC has established input standards based on the Library of Congress National Level Full & Minimal Requirements (http://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/nlr/). Previously, OCLC revised some of the NLR standards on the advice of OCLC advisory groups. At the field level:

Level I represents full or complete cataloging.

Level K represents minimal-level cataloging.

Standards for indicators and subfields are in effect only when the field itself is applicable.

Input Standards table

A table identifies level I and level K input standards at the beginning of the fixed-field elements section and at the beginning of each variable field description. The level I standard is given first, followed by a slash ( / ), then the level K standard. Core-level standards are not identified.

These abbreviations are used in the fixed-field element Input Standards table:

SS (System-supplied)

System-generated data that you cannot change.

M (Mandatory)

Data you must enter to meet the designated standard.

R (Required if applicable or readily available)

Data is applicable if:

AACR2 instructs you to enter the data when it applies

It is necessary to justify the existence of an added entry (AACR2 rule 21.29)

It is essential for efficient access to, or effective processing of, records

Data is readily available from:

The item in hand

Other bibliographic records

OCLC Authority file records

O (Optional)

Data you decide whether to enter.

Note: The following characters appear in the Input Standards tables:

Blank space, distinguished from a fill character, used when a blank is significant.

A fill character, distinguished from a blank space.

The following is an example of the Input Standards table at the beginning of each variable field description.

653 Index Term-Uncontrolled (R)___________________

Input Standards

Optional/Optional

1st IndicatorLevel of subject. The level of the subject entry. Use the 1st indicator to distinguish primary and secondary descriptors.

No information provided. No information as to the level of the subject term is provided.

0No level specified. The level of the subject term could be determined, but is not specified.

1 Primary. A subject covers the main focus or subject content of the material.

2nd IndicatorUndefined. The 2nd indicator position is undefined and contains a blank ( ).

Undefined

Subfields (R=Repeatable NR=Nonrepeatable)

Input Standard

‡a Uncontrolled term (R)

Mandatory/Mandatory

Repeatablity

(R) identifies a field or subfield as repeatable, which means it may occur more than once.

A repeatable field may occur more than once in a record.

A repeatable subfield may occur more than once in a field.

(NR) identifies the field or subfield as nonrepeatable. Fields or subfields are nonrepeatable for a variety of reasons:

The data element may occur no more than once for a given item.

The data element may occur more than once, but you enter multiple data elements in the same subfield.

The data element may occur more than once, but you enter multiple data elements in separate fields.

Validity

Some fields, subfields, elements or values may be marked Obsolete. Do not use . Although some records in WorldCat may still contain this coding, do not use these fields, subfields, elements or values in current cataloging.

Additionally, some fields, subfields, elements or values have been completely removed from the online system. They are considered as invalid. Descriptive information has been removed from this document.

Acknowledgments

OCLC acknowledges the efforts of all the people who participated in producing Bibliographic Formats and Standards.